'Ghostbusters' And The Exorcists Of The Raunch

DUMB: Third in a series on how to make stupid, mindless, moronic, gross, slob movies and make millions of dollars and live happily ever after.

Writer-actor-director Harold Ramis believes that the clean-talking, gross-free "Ghostbusters" may break forever the reign of raunch that has plagued youth comedy since "Animal House."

If so, it will have been entirely by design. Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, co-authors of "Ghostbusters" (which, with $225 million in ticket sales, is now the most successful comedy in movie history), purposely subtracted nudity, bad language and general raunchiness from the script.

"We wanted this to be the first film in which we didn't patently accept the notion that crude is good. There was a general confusion in Hollywood that it was the vulgarity which really sold these films. Raunchy behavior became a focal point," Ramis said.

The writer-artist believes he has done a lot of selling out in the past. "I was persuaded to throw in heavy doses of sexism," he said. "And I'd still like to do a movie in which nothing explodes."

Artistically, Ramis (a major creative force in four other monster hits, "Animal House," "Stripes," "Meatballs" and "Caddyshack") talks somewhat wistfully about reaching even further. "Early on, I knuckled under to some crass commercial instincts, such as the way women are treated in these films . . . as mere objects. And part of my hope is that I can be less exploitative of women . . . that I can write better for women. That's a hurdle I still face."

In the hierarchy that produced the phenomenally successful "Ghostbusters," Ramis bills himself not as a general, but as a buck private, deflecting the glory to fellow goblins Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and producer-director Ivan Reitman.

" 'Ghostbusters' was Dan's creation from the beginning," Ramis said. "He came into the project with a very elaborate script and a strong concept. He had let his imagination run wild on the whole concept, creating that wonderful occupation of ghost-chasers and an entire cosmology to contain them."

Ramis came into the Columbia Pictures' project as a co-writer, and soon he and Aykroyd were turning out page after page of ghostly derring-do until they were buried neck deep in supernatural subplots. "We finally started putting them in the shredder, returning to Dan's original, purer concepts."

And the omnipresent Bill Murray was a literary ghostie on the set who reared up constantly with personal visions, according to Ramis. "He added his own polish again and again," said Ramis. "Sometimes his inspirations had us rewriting the night before, but we often kept talking right up until the minute we shot."

Ramis recalled that it was Murray who impulsively decided to describe a "Ghostbusters" villain by using a euphemism for impotence. The ad-lib seemed so right that director Ivan Reitman let the cameras run. "Is this true?," asked another character, replying to Murray's impulsive outburst. "Yes," answered Murray with a dead-pan face, "This man has no . . . . "

"This shows how much of an impromptu product this genre can be," Ramis continued. "Bill just randomly chose the euphemism and created a classic line which will be remembered for generations."

Reitman, producer as well as director of the film, had an innate vision of how "Ghostbusters" should look and feel, Ramis said. "When we sat down to write for him, it was as if we were giving a performance. I would write a scene, show it to him and he'd say 'yes,' or occasionally, 'no.' There were no nine drafts or hassles which plague many films. We talked it out and were allowed to plow ahead."

Ramis views "Ghostbusters" as his most tasteful work to date. "It was the most outrageous in concept and the most restrained in terms of taste level. And there was, I hope, a powerful message: that society might be right on the very edge of opening up a hole that we can't close. We create our own monsters out of imagination, but if we have courage and dedication, we can save ourselves from anything."

The ultimate monster in the film turned out to be a 10-story marshmallow man--a cerebral nightmare called up by one of the ghostbusters. "Some of the things we fear the most could turn out to be marshmallows," Ramis declared.

Perhaps Ramis was overly modest about his contribution to his most successful film to date. First, he carried the mindless teen-age genre one step further by putting an ideological message in the script. And second, he vacuumed most hints of sleaze and juvenile tricks out.

The fact that the film is now the most financially successful comedy of all time didn't quench Ramis' idealistic and aesthetic thirst to do a truly important comedy, a farce that makes a heavy statement--a la "Tootsie."

Ramis explained: "Certain comedies, such as 'Tootsie,' have everything going for them--they're funny, they're real, they're moral and philosophical. I have three projects now which have that potential. But I must have the courage to hold the line and fight for the preservation of the message."